While Thursday night offered up a mediocre sky with some pretty bad transparency, Friday night exceeded my expectations by delivering an almost spotless sky. The transparency was slightly better but the difference from the previous night was marginal. I wanted to make the most of the clear skies by pursuing M3 in Canes Venatici as well as returning to my search for comet 144P/Kushida and Messier 52 in Cassiopeia.
My first target for the night was Kushida and after searching for a few minutes with the 25×100s I landed on the star HP 19148 and the small triangular asterism where I would find the elusive comet. However, if you are an suburban backyard astronomer like me then your chances of catching this comet are pretty slim. At magnitude 10.8 Kushida is a fairly dim target for light polluted skies, but I persevered nonetheless and resorted to using averted vision (as I had originally done) to try and pin it down. If uncertainty had harassed my very first observation of this comet, then I was in no doubt this time around. Through the large bins Kushida took on an extremely diffuse star like appearance that winked in and out of view and showed very little detail. I spent between 23:00 - 23:10 UT struggling to take in the tenuous view but under my illuminated skies this was as good as this comet was going to get.
I soon turned my attention to the constellation of Canes Venatici and began my hunt for Messier 3, an easy globular cluster lying 33,900 light years away from Earth. With a magnitude of 6.2 M3 should have be quite an easy find for the 25×100s, but as I swept down from Cor Caroli the sky just disappeared in a haze of orange murk. Hoping that a lower magnification would ease things I turned to my Bresser 10×50s, but even they failed to penetrate the artificial brume that clung to the eastern horizon.
Reluctantly I abandoned my search for M3 and turned to Cassiopeia to resume my search for Messier 52. However I just couldn’t resist another look at M35 in Gemini and spent a few moments soaking in the light from this gorgeous open cluster before moving on to Cassiopeia. Still using the 10×50s I swept out from Ι Cephei in the constellation Cepheus instead of using Caph in Cassiopeia as a starting point and within a matter of moments I had the faint glow of Messier 52 within my FOV. As open clusters go M52 did not look as substantial when compared to M103 - even using the 25×100s I have to say that M103 delivered a far nicer view. With averted vision the open cluster even showed some real granularity and gave up some of the stars hiding at it’s core which made for a really thrilling observation.
By this time it was 23:44 UT and I had to cut my session short, but I was delighted that I had finally seen Kushida and wiped Messier 52 from my observing list. I’ve made plans to return to Canes Venatici and take in a sucessful obsevation of M3, I also want to take a closer look at M35 in Gemini so hopefully the clear skies will continue into the weekend.
Tags: 144P/Kushida, Bresser 10x50, Canes Venatici, Caph, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Cor Caroli, Gemini, I Cephei, M103, M3, M35, M52, Strathspey 25x100
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The last few weeks have been tough: 144P/Kushida has been virtually non-existent and my deep sky observing has just gone straight out of the window. However, much to my relief Thursday night offered a clear spell, albeit a short one. The sky transparency wasn’t all that great, but I certainly wasn’t complaining - you take what you can get under these kind of circumstances.
I decided that I wasn’t going to squander any of my precious time chasing after Kushida when I could be catching up with my deep sky observing. My targets for the night were Messier 35, an open cluster in Gemini and Messier 103 and Messier 52, both open clusters in Cassiopeia. I set up the tripod from about 22:40 UT and was just finishing mounting my Bresser 10×50s when a cloud layer rolled in over the western horizon and quickly obscured the sky. To add to that, it also began to rain so I had to pack up and head indoors to wait and hope for the skies to clear.
Somebody up there was listening because within half an hour the clouds had drifted away leaving behind them a reasonably clear sky. I headed back out at around 23:20 UT, this time just with the 10×50s hand held and immediately trained them on Gemini. By using the stars Tejat and Propus as a guide, M35 wasn’t at all hard to find and instantly jumped out at me from the 7° FOV. At a magnitude of 5.3 M35 is a fairly bright DSO and under suitable sky conditions the open cluster can even be made out with the naked eye. Through my bins the cluster offered a wonderful view with some subtle granularity, but that could possibly have been down to the atmospheric conditions. After spending some time studying M35 I moved on to Cassiopeia, but not before stopping to take in some of the sights in Auriga. Namely M36, M37 and M38 which for me are just some of the finest distant open clusters observable in the night sky. If you’ve not looked at these three open clusters before, do so - you won’t be disappointed.
Finding M103 in Cassiopiea was no hard task as the open cluster sits quite close to the star Ruchbah, but at magnitude 7.4 M103 is not as vivid as M35 in Gemini and is not quite as dense. I’d have to agree with Harlow Shapely who classified M103 as a loose and poor cluster, but while M103 lacks the pizazz of M35 it still makes for a noteworthy observation. Messier 52 on the other hand proved to be a harder nut to crack as it remained elusive to me no matter how many times I swept out from the star Caph towards the constellation Cepheus. Visibility really wasn’t tack sharp and some thin fractocumulus clouds were impeding my view so my lack of success was probably down to that.
As the conditions steadily declined I decided to wrap things up and return to M52 at some future point when the weather proved to be far more agreeable. I’d also like to return to M35 and M103 with the 25×100s but that’s for another time. For the moment I’m happy I was able to get out and score two DSOs off the list and take in some satisfying observations.
Tags: 144P/Kushida, Auriga, Bresser 10x50, Caph, Cassiopiea, Cepheus, Gemini, Harlow Shapely, M103, M35, M36, M37, M38, M52, Propus, Ruchbah, Tejat, Weather
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